Jay's Guide to Writing Decent Fanatics
by Jay'sGirl123
Summary: This is the guide for the future writer. It's rated K for clean language meant for all ages. Contains folk-tale and fairytale names and storylines as examples. I accept reviews with ideas and comments, but I won't accept flames. Please read and review!
1. Author's Note

**Author's****Note:**

Hello, guests and fellow FanFiction writers! I'm Jay'sGirl123. If you're reading this, then that means you're either seeking my wise words of wisdom or reading this for the heck of it. If you're reading this for advice, then I really hope my 'wise words of wisdom' help you guys out, even if you don't need my advice at all. If you're reading this for the heck of it... then, friend, you must entertain easily. (That's a compliment. :))

Anyway, before you guys yawn and click the back button, I'd like to announce in a loud obnoxious voice that this is a no-swearing zone, and is perfectly safe for kids to scroll through without an adult anxiously peeking over their shoulder. This guide is meant especially for FanFic writers to get advice and inspiration, no more, no less. My chapters will include help with:

* Prologues, beginning chapters, and guidelines on writing them

* Character organization (Original characters, created characters, protagonists and antagonists)

* Plots and problems

* Story progress

* Details

* Spelling and grammar

* Ending chapters, epilogues, and guidelines on writing them

* Author's Notes

If you'd like me to write a few more chapters with further information, please review your ideas and I'll add to the guide. Please-those of you who aren't reading this for entertainment alone :)-take my advice into account. I appreciate your reading this! Oh, and please review if you spot a mistake, please, but no flames. Flames would make me sad. :(

If you're still reading this, you've just put up with my boring note! Congratulations! Please enjoy my guide!


	2. Prologues and beginning chapters

**Hello, kind folks who are actually reading this! **

**Chapter one; Prologues, beginning chapters, and guidelines to writing them.**

**First, we'll begin with the hardest part; ****_Prologues_**

At least, they're hard for me. I could think up a whole entire storyline and not know how to start a prologue, let alone Chapter One.

Nevertheless, they can still be quite easy to come up with if you're that type of writer, just as long as it's organized correctly.

You see, I've been on FanFiction a while now, reading through all kinds of fanatics with words that range up to 13,000 words and more, and I've rarely come across a prologue, and when I had, one tenth made the prologue make absolute perfect sense.

Now, I'm not trying to offend any of you writers out there; I'm just saying that out of the million stories I've read, a handful had a few errors that needed correcting on prologues; mostly organization. This is what I'm going to lecture you all on.

_'Great', _you're probably thinking. '_The school day ends yet here's one more teacher.'_

I assure you all, it's not as boring as it sounds. Now, here's an example of prologues in most fanatics;

_It was a dark night; pitch black with only a few stars to light up the night sky. Owls hooted up in the trees. The sound of crickets filled the air. Then, out of the shadows stepped a man. He was old and short, his long hair and beard in braids that reached his wrinkly ankles. His scowling face reared upward as he laughed high and long and loud-_

...Okay. Not my best work at all. Anyway, notice it's detail. You know it's a dark night, but where? What kind of trees are the owls perched in? What color is the old man's hair? It has detail, but not enough. In the case of writing in serious text, detail is the good way to go. For example, my better work would turn out;

_Night at the river was always too dark; the sky as black as ebony wood with only a few dim stars peeking from behind the smoky clouds. High up in the pines near the creek, owls repeated the same question over and over again, while crickets down below hummed a high tune. All was undisturbed. All was as a normal night would be-but it was far from a normal night._

_A twig snapped. Dry leaves crunched underfoot as a dark figure staggered from the shadows. The little light that the stars provided a view of an old man's wrinkly, baggy face. His white-gray hair and beard hung in dirty braids that almost reached the oily earth he was standing upon. His posture was as a rodent; a crooked back with gnarled hands attached to two bony arms. Two bent knees balance on identical bunched up feet. The old man looked impossibly frail, but the glint in his black void eyes was young and ominous as he raised his permanently scowling face to the stars above, cackling in a high, long voice-_

Much longer. Much better. As you read this entry, I'd take it you were able to see a clearer picture forming in your mind of what is happening in this scene. This is an organized, detailed prologue I would love to see in my fellow writers' entries. Also notice that no names are mentioned in this entry. That is one of the hints of it being a prologue, which brings us to the specific details of a prologue. How about something less boring:

_A girl named Tina jumped up and down excitedly. The party was fun and all of her friends were there. It was night and she had just danced with Tony and Jared and Randall. Still giggling, she ran out to go to her car. Just then a cat came out of nowhere and Tina fainted and all went black._

Whoa. Did you get any of that? This is not a very great entry. But this prologue is not only unorganized, because the author didn't even try to make it ominous. You see, prologues are supposed to make the reader wonder. It begins the story in a way that catches people's interests. This does _not_ catch people's interest. Try it with detail, like in my last example, and cut out the names. Try this instead;

_The sound of hip hop music and teenage laughter filled the cool night air, and even the bright stars were hidden behind thick clouds of smoke that billowed from large fires dotted on the beach. The soft, spongy shoreline was littered with footprints from various types of shoes as the young people partied without concern. Around a grill stood a small group of peers waiting for the food that gave off such a delightful smell. _

_Laughing in a hysterical matter, a small girl staggered from the group towards the darker parts of the beach. She had danced with the school jocks for three hours and was as tired as the dead. When she had finally excused herself from the party, she was as ready as ever to get home before her midnight._

_Humming along to the radio music that grew more and more distant, she finally reached her small red suburban. Pulling out a few jangling keys from her green jacket pocket, she started for the door._

_Suddenly, with a loud yowl erupting from its throat, a black cat leaped from the shadows and raked the girl's arm with its sharp claws. The girl batted the cat away just as it pelted off. In shock, she fell into her car headfirst. Just then, she felt woozy. What did that cat do to her? She remembered nothing more as the world faded into darkness._

(Sorry, this one's quite a bit longer. I'll shorten it a bit next time.) This is much better than the last 'prologue'. See how I organized it, and made it more into a prologue than a summary? I'd like to see more prologues like this if I see any at all. Anyway, it's the same with beginning chapters. Keep them organized, and always introduce your characters in detail. If you're having a hard time trying to decide what to write in your beginning chapters, write a storyline, one plot at a time. How does this character meet that character? What happens to that character after he/she deals with that problem? Break it down into things that will help the reader understand the picture.

Well, that's all for now. Was it too long? Too short? Did you get any of that? Please review me and tell me what you think. Thanks, readers, and look out for my next chapter, **Character Organization**! I'll make this one a little less boring, I promise. Bye!


	3. Character Organization

Hey people! Welcome back! This one has a little more humor than that last chapter, so I hope this one will earn a few giggles.

Today's chapter: **Character Organization**.

Okay people, I've read fanatics where the characters in certain books go way out of character. Like, for example, when Cinderella is way too modern.

Okay, I admit, I haven't read any FanFiction novels with Cinderella, but this is just an example. Alright, we all know Cinderella was set back in the what, fifteen, sixteen hundreds? Something like that. And some fanatics have scenes where Cinderella may be talking like a modern teenage girl. "But, daddy, I love him!" Oh, so dramatic. And some fanatics have modern people talking without apostrophes: it is, was not, we will, so on. When you write your stories, keep them talking in the language due to their era. It makes the story sound loads more realistic.

Another problem is character personalities. I've read a book where two people hate each other and in the fanatic they're suddenly madly in love. People! Enemies don't just turn around, look each other in the eye, and go on a random date! Take this for example: Red Riding Hood and the big bad wolf. As we all know, Red Riding Hood hates the wolf and the wolf would do practically anything to kill and eat her. Now, imagine them going on a date. That just doesn't make sense. It's the same with the characters in your story, people. The author made them enemies for a reason.

While we're on the subject of personalities, how about the way they act? Parodies are one thing, but when it's not, I just don't understand how in some fanfics a perfectly sane person goes completely crazy. Take this for example; we all know Belle in the Beauty and the Beast folk-tale, correct? We all know Belle is a sweet mannered, humble person in the original story. Now, for a change, what if she suddenly totally warped her moods into a pouty, childish, bratty character? I'd agree with all of you who'd think it quite funny, but that's not really Belle. I know a lot of fanatics with Belles in every chapter; characters who are usually stoic and strong are weak and confused, and characters who are older and more serious are changed to act childish and mischievous. People! Keep your characters in character!

And, lastly, character history. Snow White was hated by the wicked queen because she was the fairest in the land, _not_ because Snow White threw Timmy down the well. I've read quite a few fanatics where a character's history is changed almost completely because the writer didn't research it. Research is your best friend, FanFiction writers. Keep the character's history correct and your story will make loads more sense. Don't go spreading the rumor that Snow White pushed Little Timmy into the well, little lovelies, because it makes the story much more complicated to understand.

What did we learn from this? Always proofread your work in order to fix any Cinderellas, Red Riding Hoods and Wolves, Belles, and Snow Whites. Make sure your character fits in the story in every way possible, and if not every way, then pretty close. Nobody's perfect little lovelies, but there is such thing as trying our best.

Alright, now that I've preached to the world on book characters, it's time to move on to created characters.

Now, this part's a little tricky. I've seen fanatics where the writer made their created character a little too perfect for the original book to follow. They make their character the best of the best, good at everything, anytime, anywhere. But it's not so simple. Your character must have _some_ flaws in their lives. Nobody's born perfect, perfect, perfect. Give your character something that makes them imperfect so they sound more real.

You know Aurora from the folk-tale Sleeping Beauty? Well, how would the story have turned out if she didn't prick her finger on that spinning wheel? Not as it's supposed to end. You see, Aurora had to have made a few mistakes in order for the story to end in a way that makes sense. She made the mistake of pricking her finger, thus triggering the curse the evil fairy Maleficent had given her. But is Aurora a terrible person? No. In fact, many little kids who know the story think of Aurora as a perfect princess to look up to. But how could Aurora be perfect without being imperfect as well?

Nobody's absolutely perfect. So why make your character that way? Giving your character flaws doesn't make them clumsy and dumb. It, in fact, helps the reader relate to your character as if the character actually were real. Just remember, whenever you create a new character, imperfect is perfect.

And now for the easiest one of all; should my character be a protagonist or antagonist?

Okay, peoples, last lesson of the chapter. Protagonists are the good guys and antagonists are the bad guys. How do you come up with these people and what do they do?

Protagonists: Easy. Follow my advice from the lesson before this and _voilà_, a great good guy to help with your average copied-from-the-book heroes. Protagonists are, in a word, the superheroes of the book. They solve mysteries, battle creatures only found in our neighboring dimension, get the girl (or, in female first persons, get the guy), and finally, always turn out on the right side of the flipped coin; or, in English, have a happily ever after. Can you tell me a time you've ever read a book with the protagonist ending up on the losing side and don't have any happy ending? It's almost like a superhero comic when you think about it; good always comes out over evil.

Antagonists: Our lovely little villains. Pitiful, pitiful creatures who either want to rule the universe, steal the money, or beat the protagonist into a pulp just because he/she can. They're not exactly the popular side of the coin, and they almost always end up cowering before the good guys. If you want your character to be an antagonist, I suggest looking up some villains to see what kind of bad guy he/she'd be, and checking out my next chapter, which has all the information you need to know about plots. And just remember, our adorable villains are almost always as evil as evil itself, so create them with characteristics you don't mind being warped for the use of evil. :)

Hope you liked it! Please review me if you spotted a mistake or a part in my entry that you don't understand, so I can fix it as soon as I can. Until next time, people! Look out for my next chapter, **Plots and Problems**, a chapter on how to understand your plot and how it fits in with your story.

Bye!


	4. Plots and Problems

**Plots and Problems**

**Hey guys! Sorry I haven't updated in a bit. I've been totally obsessed with my new story, 'A Ghost king's Secret', a Percy Jackson fanatic. I guess I got so carried away in it that I totally forgot about my guide! Anyway, before you guys get bored, let's move on to learning how to write plots and problems.**

Plots and problems are pretty tricky. They can space an author (namely, me) out for weeks while trying to put the plot together, even if they have a plot in mind. Example; say, you're writing a Rumplestiltskin fanatic - though I highly doubt anyone would - and you're having a hard time with your plot. You want the beginning of the story to be peaceful, and the end to be peaceful, and a huge action packed adventure in between, but you don't know what to write. I believe this is what people call writer's block. Right? So I advise you start simple. Rumplestiltskin wants to take over the world.

Here's what you do: you put aside what you know. Rumplestiltskin wants to take over the world. Then you get the common questions answered.

Who?

What?

When?

Where?

Why?

How?

In the case of the Rumplestiltskin fanatic, you'd answer the questions with how you want it to go. In my case, it'd look something like this;

Who? _Rumplestiltskin_

What? _A plan to take over the world._

When? _On the winter solstice._

Where? _The palace._

Why? _Because he felt as if he deserved better than being just a lowly imp._

How? _By breaking into the castle at dawn with his minions._

If you don't know how you want the plot to go, I suggest writing down a few random ideas and choosing which one sounds the best when you put it all together. My Who, What, When, Where, Why, How diagram only made sense because I thought it through and put it together in the order which I thought sounded best. If it doesn't fit in with the story, add a few things to make it fit; like making another Who, What, When, Where, Why, How diagram for the protagonist(s) and making a few changes here and there. It really does help, because I've done it before. It really makes a difference when you've got a few diagrams to look back on.

What did we learn? When making a plot, arrange and rearrange in the ways you think will sound best. Making a Who, What, When, Where, Why, How diagram will help you in these cases.

Next lesson, problems.

Problems are a problem. They always stump you into terribly long lasting writer's blocks. But, with a little of my advice, you could probably overcome those irritating little problems a little easier than writer's block.

'_What are talking about, Jay'sGirl?_' You may be thinking. '_What do you mean by "problems"?_'

Well, to put it basically, the 'problems' I'm talking about are the mini plots in a story. Say, Goldilocks went to the bears' house, right? But she was able to accomplish that _after_ she was able to get past her mother. See, Goldilocks's mother's watchful eye was a problem in the story. She had to scheme her way out of her mother's eye's sight before she was able to get far enough into the woods to stumble across the bears' house.

Problems can be pretty hard to create and scatter here and there just to keep the story interesting. Every book I've ever read has problems that stand in the way of the main characters as they work their way to their goals. In fact, I'm almost upset when they do reach their goals because I know that's when the story ends. Novels only have multiple books because the problems are stepping stones to the real goal. I mean, have you ever read a story when the protagonist says, 'Yeah, I'll go defeat the bad guy,' and walks in a straight line until he gets to the antagonist's 'lair', or whatever it is? No. It's only interesting if you've got something in between. That's what problems I'm talking about.

Problems are time consuming, I'll admit. You think up a bunch of them, use half of them, but only half of that half share the same roots as the real plot. You finally get some problems that make sense, but you never know exactly where to put them. At least, _I_ never do. I only actually use, like, an eighth of the problems I think up. Problems are my least favorite part of writing a story.

Ways to help you think up problems? Storylines. Yes, I'm talking about a similarity to a number graph. Write the title of the beginning chapter on the very beginning of the storyline, and write the title of the ending chapter on the other side. Fill the space in between with challenges the protagonist could face along the way. Lengthen each one into a summary of what happens when they face that challenge. Put them all in order and you've got a summary of your entire story. All you need to do is write the story based off of the summary, making changes to suit your story along the way.

So, even though problems may seem like a waste of time, you'll never have a real story without them. Give every challenge your best shot.

What did we learn from this? Make a storyline if it helps you, and list the problems you'll need in your story. Make it interesting; something the readers just couldn't turn down.

**Well, this marks the end of my chapter. Be sure to look out for my next entry; Story Progress. I'll update as soon as I get the chance to! Thanks for reading!**

**/Jay'sGirl123**


	5. Story Progress

**Story**** Progress**

Hey guys! I'm back! Today's lesson; Story Progress. Making story progress is pretty hard in my opinion. You've got the plot down, you've got a storyline, you have your characters and - in my case - made little Lego people with their characteristics and set them up around your desk for inspiration, and you've got everything you need to know about your story. The only problem; how to write it.

How _do_ you write your story? Well, I don't know if anyone would be interested in doing this, but what _I_ always do is _act it out_.

_Act out my story, Jay'sGirl?_ You're probably scoffing. _Why should I do that if my characters are doing that for me?_

Well, I've got to admit, it helps a whole lot. Just use your imagination and goof around. Sooner or later I'm 99.999% sure you'll have an idea of how to write. Example:

I go outside, act the bit of my story that I've got so far, and let my imagination do the rest.

Jay'sGirl: And then, after the dragon blew up the clothes store (I hate clothes shopping) he blew up... the school!

I know, not so inspirational, but hey, it's an example. It can be gummy bears taking over the world if I wanted.

Another idea; summaries. Summaries! Oh, the miracles they make! You write a short version of your story and decide how to put it together, and the words will come to you.

Example:

I take my handy dandy timeline that I had written the night before and flip to a clean page in my notebook. I write a summary based on the events in the timeline and add a few things to make it more interesting.

Jay'sGirl: The timeline says, 'Red Riding Hood goes to school', 'Red Riding Hood meets best friend'. Let's see, I'll write down how she gets to the school, and how she meets her best friend in this summary I am writing. I'll make it detailed with words that describe what I'm seeing. 'Red gets to her new school, Fairytale High. She meets Goldilocks during Roleplay and they soon become friends after they find out they both don't really like wild talking animals.'

Yes, yes. Very creative. I might actually use that... moving on!

Still having a hard time trying to figure out how to write your story? Read! I'm completely sure inspiration will give you a major boost in writing. After all, what do authors write books for? Not only to read for the sheer pleasure of it, but to help all of us future writers in our journey to the big author career!

Honestly, there's nothing I like more than a good story, but sometimes it can be a little hard to write. Act it out, summarize, and read, my friends. These really do work miracles when you need them. Trust me.

Sorry it was so short! Anyway, hope you enjoyed my examples and I hope it wasn't boring you to the bones. Look out for my next chapter; **Details**.

**-Over and out,**

**/Jay'sGirl123**


End file.
